Word: shandong
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...series of remarkably candid press stories in recent months is that in three decades of rule, the Communist regime has barely begun to improve the lot of a vast number of its peasants. Some regions in the chronically poor provinces such as hilly Guizhou, arid Gansu or often flooded Shandong have not had a single good year since collectivization began in the late 1950s. According to one article, a quarter of the rural population, or roughly 200 million people, had 1977 per capita incomes of less than $27 a .year, not enough even to buy sufficient food. Western specialists...
Other importers, like Sweden's Absolut and Poland's Wyborowa, were quick to seize the chance to increase their market share. But none was so aggressive as the Chinese brand Tsingtao, imported by Monarch Import Co. of New York from the Shandong province of northern China. Monarch took full-page ads in the New York Times offering Tsingtao as a punishing alternative to Stolichnaya and extolling the Chinese vodka's delicate taste, although some drinkers find it harsh. An 80-proof fifth sells for a few cents more than Stolichnaya. The copy of one scrappy ad last...